This invention relates to foot and ankle supports for human use.
Known supports of this general type are typically used to reduce the likelihood of injury to the foot and/or ankle or subtalar joint in conditions of high physical stress thereto. In addition or alternatively such supports are used to limit the local deformation of a foot or ankle which has already been injured, as a means of assisting healing processes.
It has been found that many of the known supports fail to achieve satisfactory results or impose unwanted constraints on desired movements of the foot or ankle. For example, if support straps are fastened to the support behind the ankle/subtalar joint axis, plantar flexion of the foot causes the straps to lose tension and therefore control of the foot and/or ankle or subtalar joints is reduced.